Read The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers for Free Online Page B

Golden State between 1905 and 2000.
    that he was serving time in jail for burglary during the The story of Mumfre’s murder in Los Angeles and Mrs.
    Ax Man’s hiatus from August 1918 to March 1919.
    Pepitone’s subsequent trial is, in short, a complete fabri-Other authors seized upon Tallant’s solution, report-cation. Robert Tallant is beyond interrogation on this ing that Joseph Mumfre was imprisoned between 1911
    or any other subject, having died in New Orleans on and 1918, thus implying a connection to earlier New April 1, 1957. As for the Ax Man of New Orleans, his Orleans homicides (though he would still be excluded case remains a tantalizing mystery.
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    B
    “BABY Farming”: Infanticide for profit
    even the United States has been exempt from lethal Each historical era spawns its own peculiar types of
    “baby farming,” illustrated by the New York City case crime, from piracy and slave trading to the modern age of 14 infant murders reported in 1915. That case of “wilding” and computer “hackers.” The occupation remains unsolved, but other practitioners were brought known as “baby farming” was a product of the Victo-to book for their crimes in England and Canada, with rian era, when sex was equivalent to sin and illegitimate one case broken as recently as the late 1940s.
    birth meant lifelong shame for mother and child alike.
    In that repressive atmosphere, the “baby farmer”—usually a woman—was prepared to help an unwed mother
    “BAD Seeds”: “Natural-born” killers
    through her time of trial . . . but only for a price.
    The notion of inherited criminal traits is nothing new.
    In most cases, the “farmer” provided room and
    Indeed, the first scientific system of criminal identifica-board during a mother’s confinement, allowing embar-tion was crafted by French anthropologist Alphonse rassed families to tell the neighbors that their daughter Bertillion in 1879, based on a complex system of bodily had gone “to study abroad” or “stay with relatives.”
    measurements, including those of the skull and facial Facilities ranged from humble country cottages to the features. While the Bertillion system was eventually dis-likes of LILA YOUNG’s spacious Ideal Maternity Home, credited, the belief in hereditary “criminal types” per-where hundreds of infants were born between 1925 and sisted in some quarters—and has lately garnered 1947. Unwed mothers went home with their reputa-support, albeit conditional, from the medical and psy-tions and consciences intact, secure in the knowledge chiatric professions.
    that their babies would be placed in good homes The label of “bad seeds” derives from William
    through black-market adoptions.
    March’s 1954 novel of the same title, which told the It was a no-lose proposition for the “baby farmer,”
    story of a homicidal eight-year-old, her violent tenden-paid by those who left a child and once again by those cies inherited from a murderous mother she never knew.
    who came to pick one up. If certain laws were broken By 1954, of course, it was well known that many—if in the process, it was all the better reason for increas-not most—violent criminals emerged from homes where ing the adoption fees. Most unwed mothers and adop-CHILDHOOD TRAUMA and abuse were routine. At the tive parents doubtless viewed the “baby farmer’s”
    same time, however, occasional aberrant cases (or those occupation as a valuable public service, never mind with incomplete histories of the offender) challenged prevailing law.
    supporters of environmental causes in the “nature vs.
    It was not uncommon, however, for “baby farmers”
    nurture” argument.
    to repeatedly use criminal negligence or deliberate mur-In the 1960s, some researchers ardently pursued the der as a shortcut to profit in the maternity game. Over
    “XYY syndrome,” so called after individuals born with time there have been several headline cases, and not a surplus Y—or